Tuesday, July 30, 2013

Well, this past week Juliana underwent her 3rd eye surgery. She had the first two when she was 2 and 3. At first she was crossing her eyes, then they were drifting outward. All was well and then we realized that we were seeing some drifting again. This is probably going to be par for the course given the neurological issues we deal with but we need to do anything possible to keep her eyes in tip top shape because she relies on her eyes for her communication. Her eyes are her voice. So although we didn't want to under go another surgery, we knew we had to. Look at my trooper. She is so strong. My hero!

The doctor put little X's above her eyebrows to mark where her eyes should be. We started joking she looked like the cartoons when someone gets knocked out. She also thought it was funny.

Although it was a pretty standard surgery, I'm not going to lie. It's still scary. So as we are going nuts for this 45 minute surgery (although it felt like hours) we found a little comic relief in Roger's pants. He thought he got fresh pants from the line outside. What he got was Grace's dirty rag. Apparently after she gets muddy she likes to wipe her paws on Roger's pants.

So following surgery she was OUT. We couldn't wake her up. She barely drank and didn't have an appetite.

This was day 2. More appetite but she refused to open her eyes, even for a second. I thought maybe a little Mickey Mouse would coax her into opening her eyes. NOPE. She listened to her stories like in the olden days and still smiled and giggled at her favorite parts. I knew she was on the mend.

And this was day 3. Finally opened her beautiful blood shot eyes. Actually it wasn't as bad as I had anticipated. And what's really cool, what really has made this surgery worth it, is that now that the eyes have opened it's like she is seeing everything for the first time. She stares at everything for minutes at a time and studies every detail. She's been using her computer more than she had been. All in all she is back to her beautiful, normal and happy self. Just a little redness in eyes remain but each day it looks better and better. So glad we made the choice to do it.

Saturday, July 20, 2013

We want to give a huge thanks to the El Paso Angels of Faith. These people rock. They work so hard each year to help spread awareness and raise funds for Rett Research, all in honor of our little girl. This year in addition to putting on an amazing golf tournament, they were able to get a proclamation from the city declaring that day Rett Syndrome awareness Day in honor of Juliana.

And after the golf tournament we enjoyed some music from local musicians. Liv and Juliana decided they wanted to join in the fun. I was so proud of my girls.

Some of the awesome angel wings available for silent auction, along with our friend Brooklyn!

This is an angel that we bid on and won! Uncle Gary's sister, Chris Madrid painted it and we loved it.